lead me, child

An interesting article on unschooling in the New York Times. I don't get why so many people have such a hard time with the concept of unschooling. I try to explain what we are doing in the simplest of terms and I still get things like, "But you are doing some sort of formal lessons, right?" or "But you're going to do real work when he's in first-grade, right?" I asked my sister why she felt it necessary to follow the school-model in her home school plan, and she said, "Because my kids will eventually go to school, and they need to be able to keep up with the other kids." This response helped to settle my own internal argument over unschooling. I didn't want to waste our time running in circles, trying to keep up. I wanted to spend our time, his time, learning that life is an education, rather than an endless race with no meaningful prize. Child-led has been our philosophy for most everything in their lives: nutrition, toilet training, sleep (although, for the sanity of the adults involved, a little extra guidance on this one,) the books we read, how we play... It just makes sense that this would carry over into their education.